Back Before the Beginning
by RogueWitch
Summary: Hermione and Harry go back to try and change the circumstances that bring about the rise of the Dark Lord, by becoming students at Hogwarts during Snapes fifth year.  Can they change history, or just become a part of it?
1. Chapter 1

The summer after fourth year was the most difficult for all of us. Possibly the worst for Harry, but I can't speak to that. I watched through the front window of my parents house as a tabby took up position at the end of the block, her tail rapping securely around her front paws, she was content to wait, I wasn't. I knew exactly what was coming. Dumbledore.

Even from halfway down the street, I could see the transfiguration professors glasses etched in fur sitting primly on her feline face. I strained my ears to listen for the tell-tale pop of apperation, while I tried to not look like I was watching the cat.

My parents sat in the living room with me, the Sunday paper divided between them, while they both discussed what they were reading to the living room in general. Normally I would be completely immersed in discussion about the affairs of state, and the world. Once I left the confines of Hogwarts, I was more than thrilled to join the Muggle world, and participate in what was pertinent to my family. That's not to say that I didn't judiciously read the Daily Prophet, I had to keep up on what was happening with the war, which seemed to be more lies about Voldemort, but when I was home, I was there to spend time with my family. That is until I spotted the tabby, and knew something was up. Minerva McGonagall didn't sit at the end of your street for no reason. I was itching to know that reason, but I knew it wasn't anything good. She was here watching me, protecting the house, that's what she had done once upon a time for Harry, and I couldn't help but feel a little unsure as to why she was doing it for me know.

My parents put down their papers simultaneously, as if they were using Legitimus to communicate, which was preposterous. "Hermione, dear, is there something the matter?" My mother looked at me with concerned eyes. I was never good at keeping anything from anyone, which was a wonder I'd lived so long in this time of deception and war, but luckily my brain kept me from needing to lie often. There was always a logical and legitimate reason for me to act anyway, besides the real reason, and not telling the whole truth was still not lying.

"I'm just thinking about school, Mum." I tried to put a reassuring smile on my face, but I'm pretty sure I just ended up looking constipated.

"I know you miss it dear, but we miss you when you're away in your little world, and we would really appreciate it if you would spend your time with us while you're home." She smiled at me and went back to her paper. Dad wasn't as easily deterred, but I could tell that he wasn't sure how to broach the subject. My poor father had wanted a brood of kids, probably rivaling the Weasleys, but unfortunately that hadn't been in the cards, and he had ended up with one daughter, that he wasn't entirely sure what to do with most of the time. I didn't like sports, I wasn't interested in World War II like he was, and he couldn't take me to the Club to golf, so he really didn't have much use for me, or any way to really talk to me. It was sad that we didn't have more of a relationship, and I wished I could do something about that, but the bottom line was that when we weren't discussing the news, we really had nothing to say to each other.

"I think I'm going to try to get some reading done, I'm not half as ahead in my studies as I would like to be, I promise to be more attentive when I come back downstairs." I stood up without another word and headed to my room.

I loved being home, if only for the fact that I had my own room. I could shut my door, and know that no one else was going to come barging in and bother me. It was also a place away from my parents, who tended to get a little startled when owls arrived for me. There was one sitting mostly patiently on my windowsill when I got to my room. It had a collar around its neck with the Hogwarts seal on it, and I knew that I would get my answers as soon as I let the poor owl in. I sat down on my bed, watching the owl get increasingly impatient, and took a deep breath. It wasn't good that McGonagall was watching the house, or that I was receiving a letter from Hogwarts that wasn't pertaining to school, and it was way to early in the summer for me to get anything from them, and most importantly, I could feel something was wrong in the pit of my stomach.

The owl deposited the letter on my bed as soon as I opened the window, and left immediately, without asking for any kind of snack, I really didn't want to open that letter.

Miss. Granger,

As you must know, from your dedication to your subscription to the Prophet, the Ministry is not going to support the fact that this war is going to happen. I am worried about the safety of you students as this war begins to be more and more of a reality. Not only that, I am also worried about your family, and those of other Muggle-born students. Professor McGonagall and I have discussed this at length, and we feel that we have come to a conclusion that will end this war quickly and efficiently, at least on this end, with minimal loss of life, and will assure the safety of Muggle families for all of our students. This unfortunately will require a great deal of participation on your part. Please accompany Professor McGonagall to Hogwarts as soon as possible, we must begin immediately.

Dumbledore


	2. Chapter 2

I expected to be presented with a Portkey, and was surprised when the cat escorted me to a secluded grove of trees without a backwards glance. The cat transformed back into my professor, and without a word she took my arm and apperated us to the gates of Hogwarts. My stomach tied itself into knots, and I had to lean over with my hands on my knees to try to keep from vomiting. I took slow even breaths of the clean warm air that surrounded the Hogwarts castle. It was a nice change from the smoggier air of the city, but my appreciation of the clean air was hampered by my convulsing abdomen.

"The first time you apperate it can be a little unnerving," McGonagall waited patiently for me to recover. I gave her a dirty look when I thought she wasn't looking. "That scowl does not suit you Miss. Granger; perhaps you should leave the scowling to our lovely Potions Master." She could have at least warned me about the apperation before we did it. "We must hurry; Professor Dumbledore is waiting for us." She took off again without waiting for me, and I had to scramble to keep up. I should be used to that kind of treatment from the Deputy Headmistress, but her curt nature always took me by surprise. For some reason, I always expected her to be softer towards those of us in her house, but I was always disappointed.

Being at Hogwarts when there were no other students about was very strange. The entire castle felt empty, and I could hear our footsteps echo all the way up the stairway, the quick clip of McGonagall's heeled boots and the dull thud of my trainers trying desperately to keep up, and not get caught at one of the revolving staircases.

Before I knew it, we stood in front of the Gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office, I put my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath, while McGonagall said the password, and stood on the stairs as they made their way up to the office. I needed to work out more, McGonagall wasn't even breathing hard.

She rapped neatly on the wooden doors leading to Dumbledore's inner sanctum, and waited for him to respond. I took the time to get my breathing completely under control. It was simply embarrassing. We heard the call to enter from inside the room, and I was greeted by a stoic Dumbledore, which worried me even more then his letter had, and a scowling Snape, which was simply par for the course. Harry sat in a high backed wing chair facing Dumbledore's desk, he didn't look any less worried then I felt. I could almost hear my heart rate increase at the look on his face. My blood rushed thought my ears, and I almost missed Dumbledore asking me to have a seat. The only seat was in front of Snape, but I was too worried about what Dumbledore had to say, that the Potion's Master simply didn't frighten me, even when his scowl increased when I walked past him without a word.

"Miss. Granger, I'm glad you could make it on such short notice." Dumbledore sat down behind his desk and folded his hands in front of himself, steepling his fingers and leaning his chin down on them gently. He seemed to collect himself, now that he was sitting, and a small smile played along his lips. "Lemon drop, Miss. Granger?" He offered the bowl to me, and I could hear Snape let out an exasperated breath. I simply shook my head very, very slightly.

"Really, Albus," McGonagall chastised, "we just interrupted their summer break, let's get on with it."

"Minerva, I'm afraid we are going to be interrupting more than just their summer." Dumbledore sat back in his chair and popped a lemon drop into his mouth. "What we are asking them to do this evening will change the entire course of their lives."

I fidgeted in my seat, I hated it when people talked about me like I wasn't in the room, and that's exactly what they were doing. The "Grown-Ups" were talking about us, but seemed disinclined to talk to us, which was beyond frustrating. Harry might have been content to let them decide his fate for him, he had been letting Dumbledore do it since day one at Hogwarts, but I wasn't one to just sit by and wait until the answers came to me, and if anyone knew that, the three professors in Dumbledore's office should be the first to point it out, if they hadn't been so wrapped up in their own conversations.

"Please, Professors, why are Harry and I here?" I resisted the urge to stand up, making my presence more known, and I kept my hands folded in my lap, least I get picked on by Snape.

"You are here, Miss. Granger, because we have need for you and Mr. Potter's assistance in ending this war quickly." Dumbledore sighed, and popped another lemon drop in his mouth. "The three of us have been talking this over, ever since Harry here came back at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament." Out of the corner of my eye I could see Harry looking down at his hands. I knew how badly the tournament had affected him, but hadn't given enough thought about the fallout of his announcement that Voldemort was back. I read what was in the Prophet, but was ashamed to say that I hadn't spent much time thinking about Harry's state of mind on the subject.

"How are we going to end the war before it's even really started?" Harry looked at Dumbledore and then over to me. "And why isn't Ron here?" I looked around, I had been so focused on my worry that it hadn't even occurred to me that Ron wasn't with us, yeah, I noticed he wasn't there, but it hadn't really registered. I took a deep breath and tried to center myself, my mind was obviously not working at its prime, and I was more than a little embarrassed by that, not that anyone was paying any attention to me, and there for probably hadn't noticed.

"We are going to send you back in time, Harry." Dumbledore looked at Harry directly in the eye, his small smile completely gone from his face. "And Mr. Weasley isn't here, because it will be very difficult to explain away his absence, where as we can easily explain away the absence of the two of you." Dumbledore steepled his fingers again, and leaned back in his chair.


	3. Chapter 3

I wasn't sure what to say to that, how could our absence be simply explained away, and Ron's couldn't? I waited for Dumbledore to continue, but he seemed disinclined to say anything more on the subject. I glanced at McGonagall, but she just stood there behind Harry's chair looking grim. I wasn't too keen on turning around and looking at Snape, so I refolded my hands and studied my cuticles.

Dumbledore really knew how to build the suspense, but I seemed to be the only one annoyed at his apparent lack of information. Harry just sat there like someone had stunned him. "So, back in time," I wasn't really sure how to continue, but I had started, and had this burning need to see everything through, it was a habit that I really needed to break, since I also had this terrible habit of starting sentences I hadn't finished thinking through yet. "How are you going to send us back?"

McGonagall put her hand on my shoulder, which startled me a bit, and handed me my time turner from third year. "Professor Vector has been doing some calculations for us, regarding this time turner, and we think we have the correct calculations to send you back to the Marauders fifth year." McGonagall handed me to necklace and stepped back behind Harry.

"Before we send you back though, we need to give you some," Snape paused, as if he was unsure how to word the next part of his sentence. "We need to give you some offensive and defensive skills for your journey."

"What do you mean offensive and defensive skills?" Harry finally joined the conversation, which only seemed to anger Snape, not that I could blame him.

"Mr. Potter, could you possibly wait until I have finished speaking before you bombard me with useless questions?" Snape took a deep breath, which sounded distinctly irritated and then continued. "As I was saying, we will need to give your some skills before we send you off on your little adventure. These skills will be paramount when it comes to the cover you will be working under. Other than some standard advanced defense spells that I will be working on with you, Professor McGonagall will work with you in hopes to achieve an animagus form, and I will tutor you in Legitimus and Occlumency. Miss. Granger, you and I will work together on advanced potions, potions that you will need in order to maintain your cover."

"We have sent notification to your Aunt and Uncle, Harry, informing them that you will spend the remainder of your time at Hogwarts at the school itself. I have little doubt that they will have any issue with this turn of events." Dumbledore looked sad, but Harry just nodded, excepting the fact that there would be no trouble from the Dursleys about his departure from their residence.

"How will you explain my absence?" My parents simply weren't going to accept that I wasn't coming home, they valued too much the time that I spent during holiday with them.

"We aren't," Snape leaned against the back of my chair, speaking too close to my ear for comfort, but I was determined not to let him get under my skin, he did that far too much in the classroom, and if what he said was true, I would be spending far too much time with him very soon.

"Miss. Granger, in order to complete this mission, you are going to have to disappear." McGonagall took a deep breath before finishing. "As your only tie to the wizarding world is this school and the Weasley family, it will be relatively easy to convince them that you are simply elsewhere, of course the Weasley's will know the truth, but the school will simply think that you have gone to another school, Harry as well. As far as the Muggle world will be concerned, you will have never existed."

It felt like my heart stopped. I looked at the professor for a full minute before I could come up with anything to say to her. And even then my mouth hung open for long enough that I heard Snape snort behind me, presumably because of the expression on my face. "What, I mean, how?"

"It seems for once, Miss. Granger's formidable mind has failed her, if only this was the school term." Snape sneered. "I have developed a spell that will simply strike you from the minds of all Muggles, similar to the spells and incantations that hide the magic world from them. Unfortunately, even if you are successful in your mission, this cannot be undone."

"Miss. Granger, we are asking a great deal from you. In essence, you will give up your entire life, your identity. There will no longer be a Hermione Granger as far as the Muggle world is concerned. If and when you and Harry succeed, you will have to accept that there is no one outside of the Magic community that will know of your existence. You will be giving up your family, but you will also be ensuring their safety, theirs and many others." Dumbledore looked at me expectantly. "We will need your agreement before the end of this meeting, I'm afraid, as we must start making preparations for your departure at the end of the summer holidays."

"Hermione, dear, we will understand if you say no." McGonagall looked at me with sad eyes, and I knew that I had to say yes. I had to give up everything because they wouldn't ask this of us if they thought that there was another way.

"I understand, professor." I looked at Dumbledore, and took a deep breath. "I agree to your proposal."

A/N: Okay, so in rapid succession I have given you the first three chapters, which means it's time to review! Please tell me how you like the story so far, and I welcome any suggestions, just know I have very definite plans as to where this story is going.


	4. Chapter 4

Excepting Dumbledore's terms and actually starting training, turned out to be two very separate things. I spent that first full afternoon having the spell cast over me by McGonagall and Flitwick, to ensure that my removal from the minds of the Muggle world was complete. Once they dismissed me, more than anything, I wanted time to mourn the loss of my old life, just a few quiet hours of reflection, and most likely a bit of sobbing into my pillow, would have been greatly appreciated, but I was whisked immediately from the Charms classroom and sent to the dungeons, where Snape was waiting for me. He had two cauldrons set up together on a workbench, his hair tied back, leaving his hawk like features more exposed than usual.

"Miss. Granger, are you going to stand in my doorway all evening, or are you going to try and absorb the knowledge I am to impart on you?" He sneered at me, arms crossed tightly over his chest. If he hadn't been so frightening, he would have looked absurd.

"I'm sorry, professor, it's just been a bit of a trying day." I could feel tears prickling at the corners of my eyes, and I had to blink rapidly to keep them from falling. I couldn't cry in front of Snape, I'd never hear the end of it.

"Spare me the emotional sentiment, Miss. Granger. I am not here to coddle you; I'm here to teach you the potions that will keep you and Mr. Potter alive." His eyes bore into mine and I could see the heavy disdain he had for my unshed tears. I ran my cuffs under my eyes, erasing any signs of my near breakdown and closed the door to the Potions classroom behind myself.

"I apologize, professor."

"Quite your sniveling and get over here, I have two months to impart years of knowledge into that know it all brain of yours, I only hope that half of what I teach you penetrates." He gestured toward the workbench, which was covered in ingredients, all of which I knew by sight from four years of being in his potions class, and the obsessive amount of reading and research I did on my own. What I was to do with them, on the other hand, was a complete mystery. "This is a very simple potion to brew, but it must be brewed exactly correctly, and a new batch must be prepared every single time, this is not a potion that can be kept sitting. It has and extremely short shelf life and if it is consumed after its date, it can have very unpredictable results."

"What is it that I'm making, professor?" He had yet to give me any kind of instruction, past indicating that I was to put my hair up, and I was eager to get brewing so that I could get to dinner some time that night.

"This potion has no formal name, as I am the only one who knows of it, it is a potion of my own invention, and you must memorize it, because you will find it nowhere else." He handed me a hand written parchment, which looked old and well handled. "This potion will aid in your disguise, Miss Granger, and must be brewed once a week to keep that disguise going. These are all simple and easy to get a hold of ingredients, I am sure you are resourceful enough to be able to procure them on your own." Yes, professor, I was the one to steal the ingredients out of your stores second year, you can really stop bringing it up now, it was nearly three years ago. Not that he would ever stop back handedly bring that incident up.

We both set to task, brewing in silence, as I chopped and shredded and pulverized ingredients, I couldn't help but wonder at the results of what I was brewing. It wasn't that I was adverse to some kind of disguise, but I had grown quite fond of my appearance. In the past few years I had finally managed to mostly tame my hair, I had grown into my limbs, which a year previous had been long and awkward, but had become, in my opinion, graceful; I was quite proud of the way body had begun to fill out. I felt comfortable in my skin and wasn't too thrilled at the idea of changing, and of course the incident with polyjuice in second year still weighed heavily on my mind. The potion that I was brewing was far less complex then the polyjuice, but then polyjuice was designed to duplicate an entire person, down to their sex, this one, hopefully, wouldn't go that far.

It took less than an hour to finish brewing, which was aided by the fact that Snape wasn't hovering over my shoulder, but immersed in a potion of his own. I took the potion off the flame and bottled one cup full, as per the directions that I had been given, and waited for Snape to instruct me further.

"You must drink down the entire cup, as soon as it cools. Do not waste time or the results will be unpredictable." Snape didn't even look up from his work.

I held the glass in my hands as it started to cool, and said a silent good-bye to the Hermione Granger I had always been, and chugged down the contents of the glass.

A/N: Thanks go out to my reviewers, especially HeartMom88 for correcting my dumb blonde moment! Please keep reviewing; it makes an author feel good!


	5. Chapter 5

My scalp tingled and I felt like I had grit in my eyes, which I immediately went to scrub away, but Snape's long fingered hands clasped themselves around my wrists and yanked them back down to my sides, not letting them go.

"Do not rub your eyes while the potion is at work." His silky voice was way too close to my ear, and I had to suppress a shudder that threatened to travel down my spine. I wasn't able to stop the goose flesh from covering my entire body, but whether that was from the potion or Snape's hot breath on my neck, I wasn't sure. "You must not interfere with the magic at work; you are liable to cause damage to your person." His steely fingers let go of my wrists, and I fought the urge to rub them. "I trust that I will not have to remind you again."

"No sir." I felt him move away but couldn't see what he was doing, as I had my eyes firmly shut.

As the magic continued to work over me, I felt my hair hit my back with a heavy thud, having worked its way out of the bun I had twisted it into before leaning over a steaming cauldron. It felt heavier than usual, but that could have been because of the damp air over the cauldron wetting it. I kept my arms stiffly at my sides until the tingling stopped. I cautiously opened my eyes to find Snape in front of me with a mirror.

"Take a look, Miss. Granger." He handed me the mirror and stepped back. I held the mirror tightly and took a deep breath through my mouth and held it, bringing the mirror up to my face. I screwed my eyes shut as the mirror got closer, and I couldn't seem to bring myself to open them again. "Miss. Granger, it would be advisable for you to open your eyes, as I am sure that you cannot see through your eye lids." I let out the breath I had been holding, but could convince myself to open my eyes. I liked how I looked, I didn't want to took any other way; sure my hair was bushy and out of control, and I wasn't as beautiful as some of the other girls in my year, but there wasn't anything I really would change about myself, I looked the way I looked for a reason. "Miss. Granger, if you do not open your eyes this instant I will simply have to do it for you."

My eyes popped open at his sever tone, and at first I could hardly tell the difference, the mirror was so close to my face. My features were the same as before, same small nose, same slightly full Cupid's bow mouth, and same big doe eyes. Then I looked closer. While my eyes were the same size and shape, they were no longer a rich honey brown, but a startling green; it was such a difference that I had nearly missed it. I brought the mirror closer to my face to get a better look. They were very green and also very familiar. I put the mirror aside and looked down at myself, a wave of very dark, and extremely straight, black hair obscured my vision. I took a handful in each hand and brought it up to my face. It was very thick, but soft, and so black that even in the torch light of the dungeon it had blue highlights. I picked the mirror back up and took a look at my hair. No more busy brown, hard to manage hair for me. It was now long and straight and fell all the way down my back. I wondered for a moment how on earth I was going to manage to brush it, but Snape interrupted ne from my thoughts.

"Congratulations, Miss. Granger, you can now pass for Mr. Potter's twin sister, which is exactly what you will be doing." Snape crossed his arms tightly over his chest again and gave me a disgusted once over. "You must memorize not only the ingredients, but also the brewing instructions as you will not be allowed to take them with you." I nodded in understanding. "You are dismissed for supper. It will be in the Great Hall." He turned back to his potion and began brewing again.

As I walked from the dungeons, I pulled my newly straight hair into a tight braid, which fell nearly to my butt, and secured it with an extra rubber band I had around my wrist. The one I had used previously was apparently gone for good.

The Great Hall was nearly empty. The house tables were pushed to the side, and the house banners, which usually flew over their respective house tables, where gone. I could see Harry sitting up at the head table with Dumbledore and McGonagall, none of the other professors where present, and I had just left Snape in the dungeons, it was unlikely that he would come out, what with a potion brewing.

I pulled nervously at the end of my braid, which lay like a thick rope down the center of my back. I was still me, I reminded myself, my hair was just a bit different. A bit different, I snorted; it was very, very different. I was just glad it wasn't blonde.

No one even looked up at me as I made the long trek though the Great Hall. It wasn't until I sat down, between Harry and Dumbledore, that anyone commented. "Why, Miss. Granger, that hair color certainly does become you." Dumbledore's eyes sparkled at me mischievously. "And what a lovely shade of green, I dare say, any Slytherin would be very jealous." He twinkled even harder, "our illustrious Potions Master must be very proud at how well you brewed his potion on the first go."

"Not likely," Harry mumbled under his breath.

"You would be surprised, Severus may not show it, but he is always quite proud when his students accomplish a great task. As a matter of fact, he still grumbles about your successful polyjuice, Miss. Granger, that is an extremely advanced potion, and you brewed it successfully in your second year." Dumbledore took a long drink from his goblet, as if he were considering something. "As a matter of fact, it's one of the reasons you were chosen for this mission."

"What's the other reason?" Harry asked. I tried not the give him a dirty look, but from his deflated expression, I must have failed. I was not chosen for my ability to school my features, it was something I would need to work on.

"She was chosen, Mr. Potter, because you are going to need help on this mission." McGonagall leaned past Dumbledore to look at Harry directly. "She will be there for her brilliant mind, as well as her ability to keep you on task. You are there to prevent Severus and his classmates from joining with Voldemort's ranks. You are not going to be there to hang out with your parents, which is why you will be placed in Slytherin, the both of you, as transfer students from, Durmstrang."

A/N: Tune in next time for the full mission, and a bit of animagus training, and much, much more! Please don't forget to review your author on the way out.


	6. Chapter 6

McGonagall squired us to what would be our guest rooms, which were near the Great Hall. Since there were only two of us, there was no reason to open the entirety of Gryffindor tower to us. Our rooms consisted of a small shared common room, two bedrooms, and a connecting bathroom. It was small and cozy, and we knew, with all the preparation work we had set before us, that we wouldn't be spending a great deal of time there. I was more than ready to fall into bed as soon as we hit the common room, but that wasn't to be.

McGonagall followed us into the room and took a seat on one of the wing backed chairs that were situated near the fireplace, which was crackling nicely, despite the heat outside. She gestured for us to join her. I looked at Harry, but he only shrugged his shoulders very slightly, and took a seat on the couch facing the professor. I folded my hands neatly in my lap, as I sat on the opposite end of the couch, waiting for her to begin.

The transfiguration professor took a deep breath and looked troubled. I'd never seen her so distressed, and with all the trouble we had gotten ourselves into, and consequently out of, over the past four years, I thought that might be a clue that it was time to panic a bit. When it came to telling us hard truths and information that we would need to know, Professor McGonagall had not problem laying it out on the table. What she had to tell us would prove to be very valuable information, and also very difficult to process.

"You must understand," she began, finally. "What we are asking of you will not be a simple mission; we are asking that you give up your final three years of school, your time with your friends and families, and your own personal safety." She took a moment and looked us both in the eyes. I was betting that the responsibility of giving us this talk fell on her, as our Head of House, not because she felt she was most qualified to give it to us. "You will have limited resources once you return in time, and you will have no way to gauge your mission's success other than your own personal assessment." I was itching for her to get to the point, if only so that I could go in my room, and have a nice long, and well planned out, break down, but I could tell she needed the time to work up to what she was getting at, so I tried to sit still and listen. Harry, on the other hand, was squirming like a six year old, in his seat. "Our best bet at beating He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is to take him out before his power base is established. We were too sure we could prevent it before, and we waited too long to start to mount a defensive, and now that he's back, there are those who don't think that he can be defeated at all. If he can comeback from death once, what's to stop him from doing it again?" McGonagall pulled her witch's hat off her head and ran her hands over her hair, with little regard for her tightly knotted bun. "We waited too long, hedged our bets, and now we are asking children to fix our mistakes. I can't tell you how much we regret putting you in this position."

Harry seemed to finally have enough of her avoidance of the subject, "what position is that exactly?" I glared at Harry, he wasn't patient enough, and that was one of the reasons that I was going with him, but how do you stop an impetuous boy from jumping in, out of turn?

"We need you to prevent Severus, Professor Snape," she added, like we didn't know his given name, already, "from falling to the dark. This will be no easy task, he had many things in his childhood that pushed him in the wrong direction, and predisposed him to the Dark Arts, but his turn started in earnest in his fifth year, when his closest friend, one who had been with him since early childhood, betrayed him terribly, and turned to his worst enemies."

"What happened?" I couldn't say that I particularly cared one way or the other about what Snape had gone through, we had all had trying adolescence, and Harry could probably write the book on bad childhoods, and he had turned out just fine.

"Miss. Granger, that is not my story to tell, I will leave it to Professor Snape to divulge to you the personal information, suffice it to say, it was the proverbial straw that broke the hippogryph's back, everything spiraled down from there. Your job will be to prevent this incident from happening or more likely, to lessen the impact. I have a sad suspicion that this was an inevitability that it was only a matter of time before this person betrayed Severus, and even if you prevent this one event, there will be others." She took a breath and sat quietly, considering. "Upon his graduation, Severus joined He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's ranks, to prove his loyalty, Professor Snape provided Tom Riddle with the potion that turned him into the creature we now know as Voldemort. This must be prevented. You will have three years to change the course of Professor Snape's life, join the Order of the Phoenix under Professor Dumbledore, and stop Tom before he gains too much power." She got up to leave, but stopped in the doorway. "Even if you are able to do all of this, there is no guarantee that you will be able to return home. You must be prepared for this." With that she left us to our own thoughts.

We both sat in stunned silence, glued to the couch. I sat watching the fire; this was way too much to put on one person's back, and I wasn't even thinking about me and Harry. I knew that it wasn't Snape alone that enabled Voldemort to come to power, and the way McGonagall presented it to us, it was his entire fault. I might not like the man, he was a tyrant and a mean and sadistic professor, but he was still one man. Then again, it was the Butterfly Effect, one butterfly, flapping its wings and causing a tsunami a world away, or more accurately it was ripples on a pond. How do you prevent a ripple from starting a chain reaction, you take the rock out of the equation, and Snape is our rock. But not only do we have to stop him from falling, we have to push him in the other direction.

I left Harry sitting on the couch, silent as I had ever seen him, and retired to my own room, though I didn't think that either of us would be getting a good night's sleep for a long time to come, I didn't want Harry to see me finally let all of the events of the day wash over me, it wasn't his place to comfort me when I broke down, at least not yet.

A/N: Well that's all for tonight, folks. I had very definite plans to write at least two chapters, but the need for sleep and the 14 hour day I put in at work kind of changed those plans pretty quickly. Please let me know what you all are thinking so far… and I promise that they will get back to the past very soon.


	7. Chapter 7

Two week into training I was still none the wiser about the incident that had altered the course of Snape's life. Not only did I not know, but both Harry and I were reluctant to ask. Snape was more than a little volatile in my potions labs, shouting consistently at my inability to memorized potions I had never seen or heard of before, in an instant. I was smart, but I wasn't clairvoyant. Harry and my Occlumency lessons were, if possible, worse.

"Mr. Potter, if you do not even try then there is no point in you even showing up!" Snaped paced back and forth in front of Harry's chair. "You must be able to shield your thoughts and learn to school your expressions before you go back. By fifth year, I can guarantee that every single Slytherin student is at least proficient in Legitimency, and they will not hesitate to use it on you." Snape had given the same lecture to Harry every day since we had started the lessons, and from what I could tell, Harry wasn't improving, much to my vexation, as well as Snape's. Sweat dripped off Harry's face, not trying seemed to be very hard to me.

Snape snapped his head over to me, sitting quietly on my stool, waiting for my turn to have the Professor try and invade my mind. His black eyes turned harder, and his stare bore into me. I could feel the weight of his mind trying to push into mine. I pushed right back. Usually, I would feel his resistance lessen and He would make some comment about me having at least some talent before turning back to Harry. Today, I could feel his anger and frustration, he pushed harder to try and get through my shields, I pushed back as hard as I could.

It felt like a bubble bursting, and suddenly my mind was filled with thoughts and feelings that were completely foreign to me. I heard a piercing scream before I saw anything; my entire being was wracked with pain, every muscle in my body contracted violently, then it stopped. Red beady eyes drilled into mine, and the snake like face cracked open into a hideous grin. I pushed my mind away from the image of Voldemort.

He faded away into the mist and dissolved into an image of me, probably from early in my first year at Hogwarts, my front teeth still a bit too big for my face. My hand was waving indecently in the air. I was glad I had finally broken myself of that habit, though as annoyed as I felt Snape was at my antics, I could also feel how proud he was when I yet again answered his question correctly.

The memory dissolved into one of another little girl, roughly the same age as I had been, spouting off some information, then another memory of the same girl, her long red hair streaming around her face in the wind, smiling, she presented Snape with a daisy, saying he was her best friend always. I could feel his heart swell, and that for the first time ever, he was truly happy.

The memory shifted, again. The girl was older now, her face contorted in anger. Shame and humiliation flowed through Snape in waves and I could feel him holding back tears.

"I hate you, Severus Snape, don't you dare talk to me again." The girl turned and stalked off, four boys were behind her, laughing and cheering. It felt like my soul was shattering, but I knew it was Snape's.

The next thing I saw was the mark burning into Snape's arm, as he pledged himself to the Dark Lord. I shoved myself away from his mind; I didn't want to see anymore.

I was nose to nose with Snape, back in the dungeons, my hands clasped on either side of his face. We were both breathing hard, his hands like vise grips on my wrists. I knew I would have two perfect hand shaped bruises on my arms for days.

"Did you enjoy your little trip, Miss. Granger?" I tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let me. "Did you enjoy watching me suffer at the hands of your little friends parents?" He pulled me closer, his lips next to my ear. "Did you enjoy your taste of the Cruciatus Curse, the feel of the Mark burning into your skin?" Hot tears ran down my face, for the first time, I felt badly about the way we all treated Snape.

"No, sir." I held as still as I possibly could, feeling waves of anger rolling off of the Professor. "I'm sorry, sir." He pushed me away from him with such force that I fell over my stool, and landed hard on the ground.

"Good." He stalked over to the door, the lesson was over for the day, and I couldn't have been happier. "At least one of you has a talent for Legitimency." He threw the door open and was gone in a billow of robes.

"What the hell just happened?" Harry offered his hand to me, helping me off the floor. "He was staring at you, then suddenly you grabbed his face, I thought you were going to kiss him." Harry pulled a horrified face. "And you were both screaming, and then it was like you're turned to stone, you both quit moving or breathing." I sat carefully down on the now righted stool, rubbing my sore wrists and trying not to think about the bruise forming on my butt.

"I think I know what we have to fix." I looked down at my hands, my wrists were a raw, angry red, but more than my wrists, my heart hurt.

"What did you see?" Harry asked eagerly, he'd been just as curious as I had been about what we were up against.

"Your mum." I couldn't look Harry in the eye, how do you tell your best friend that his mother was responsible for breaking someone's heart so badly that he turned to Voldemort to make the pain stop? And that was exactly what happened, Snape turned to the Dark Arts so he would stop feeling the betrayal of his best friend, Lily Potter.

"What do you mean?"

"Your mum, Harry, she broke him so badly he couldn't be fixed."

A/N: I suck, I know. I meant to have this chapter out several days ago, but with work and, well, work, it's been a bit hard. Please forgive me, and review anyway?


	8. Chapter 8

Harry stared at me, his mouth gapping open. I could see thoughts, questions, running behind his eyes as his mouth worked open and closed, like a fish. It would have been humorous if I wasn't still suffering from the affects of the memories I had shared with Snape. Maybe shared was too mild a word, he hadn't actually let me look into his privet, and obviously painful thoughts, but that didn't change the outcome.

"What do you mean, my mum broke Snape?"

"They were friends," I couldn't lift my eyes from my folded hands. I couldn't look at Harry and tell him that it was his mum's fault we had to go back, that we had to correct a wrong that a women that he held up so high on a pedestal, had inflicted. A wrong so grievous that it had turned a fifteen year old boy to the Dark Arts, and ultimately Voldemort, in order to numb the pain. Granted, it wasn't that one instance, but a series of occurrences that had finalized Snapes decision to turn, but that was the one that sent him over the edge, that was the one we had to change, either he had to stay friends with Lily, or we had to give him a better option than Voldemort. I was trying not to think that Snapes actions were justified. They weren't, the betrayal of Lily Potter did not make Snape a Death Eater, but the pain I felt in him made me understand, to a degree, his drive to make it stop. Lily hadn't simply rescinded her friendship, but she had stolen the one thing that was good and bright in his life. In a few moments, Snape had gone from a child who held onto his one friend like a life line, to drowning, alone, and it was up to Harry and I to give him that life line back, or give him something new and unwavering to hold on to. I didn't know how it would change the tide of the war, but I could feel my determination wrap around my heart with the same force that Snape's hands had gripped my wrists. "She's the one that betrayed him." I could feel the tears running down my face, the cold dungeon air turning the hot tears to ice on my cheeks.

"He must have done something to deserve it." Harry gave me a hard look, like it was somehow my fault, and maybe in some way it was, I was the once to see it after all.

"It doesn't matter if he deserved it or not," though I couldn't imagine anyone doing anything to deserve their best friend turning their back forever, not even Snape. "It doesn't matter if he deserved it or not, we have to fix it."

"I don't know if I can," Harry walked out of the room, much more subdued then Snape had, but stiff and determined. The door slammed behind him with an air of finality.

Once I was alone, I let my tears fall in earnest; my heart feeling like it was breaking. I was going to fix this, no one deserved to be treated like that, no matter what was done or said, friends don't abandon each other, they forgive.

I took time to compose myself, stopping in the girls' bathroom in the dungeons, before making my way up the stairs. My face was still a bit red from crying, but it was much less puffy after I splashed frigid water on it.

The trek up to Dumbledore's office seemed to take forever, but I needed more answers then I had gotten from my little trip down memory lane with Snape, and it was unlikely that he would be willing to share anymore with me. The Headmaster was my best bet.

The stone gargoyle that guarded the office stood blocking my path, completely unmoved by my guesses at Dumbledore's password. After about the millionth try, I sat down, defeated. He would have to leave his office eventually; I would just have to sit and wait until he did. It wasn't like I had anywhere else to ne, Snape had walked out on our lesson, and I wasn't thrilled with the idea of facing Harry until he calmed down a bit.

I was startled out of my thoughts when the gargoyle suddenly jumped out of the way of the stairs and Snape charged down, sweeping past me in a billow of black robes, not even acknowledging that I was there. I jumped at the stairs before the gargoyle could close the entrance again, running up to Dumbledore's office door.

"Come in, Miss. Granger." Dumbledore was seated behind his desk, his jaunty red and gold wizard's cap flashing in the torch light. "I dare say, I had a most intriguing encounter with Professor Snape, just a moment ago." His eyes sparkled mischievously at me, making me wonder what he was plotting behind those half-moon glasses of his.

"You don't say, Professor." I took a seat on one of the chairs facing Dumbledore's desk, clasping my hands in front of me. "What did he have to say?" Other than to keep me away from him, after I had very toughly invaded his mind, that is.

"He seems to think you are more than ready for this mission. That you have the capability to pull this off." Dumbledore sat back in his chair, steapling his hands on his desk. "It is extreamly hard to disturb a man such as Severus, I must commend you, your abilities at Legitimency and Occlumency must really be something. I'm even more impressed then usual with the fact you have Professor Snape's backing for this task, I assure you, it was very hard won."

I could only imagine, with what we were tasked at doing that Snape wasn't at all happy at the prospect of Harry and myself messing with his life. Granted, it wasn't like he would know, if everything went according to plan that is.

"Once you and Mr. Potter complete your animagus training, I think it will be time for you to go."

"I would like to know more about the circumstances that lead up to Professor Snape's falling out with Lily Potter." I absentmindedly rubbed at the bruises that were beginning to form on my wrists, touching them made them ache more. "I don't believe the Professor will be willing to tell me anything more, himself."

"I believe you are correct in that assumption, Miss. Granger." Dumbledore retrieved a pensive from behind his desk. "He did, on the other hand, leave this for you."

A/N: Okay, two chapters… trying to make up for my lack of writing for the past few days, hopefully this will tide you over. I promise that in the next few chapters we will start to get into the meat of the story, and actually travel back in time. Please leave a generous review on your way out, thank you.


	9. Chapter 9

"Sir, don't you think Harry should be here to view this?" I wanted nothing more than to dive head first into that pensive, but I also knew that showing Harry what I saw and telling him what I saw, would produce two very different responses.

"Harry will view these memories at a later time, Miss. Granger. I think you and I both know that some of what he will see in here will upset him." Dumbledore leaned into his desk, his hands flat on the surface. "Harry has put his parents on this pedestal, thinking that they could never do any wrong, that they couldn't make mistakes." He took a deep breath and continued. "He has forgotten that they were human, that every young boy goes though a stage when he picks on those less fortunate than he. James unfortunately found a very easy target in a soft spoken, bookworm, and he took advantage of that, egged on by his friends."

"Yeah," I said very quietly. "I've been there."

"You were lucky to fall into a group of friends in your house. Severus was alone for a long time. Lily was his only real friend." Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "Unfortunately, the Slytherins at the time were seduced by the power Tom had, and most of them had older siblings and parents who had been in school with him, he had a large pool of friends and hangers on to draw from. When Lily turned her back on Severus, he simply fell in with the wrong crowd."

"We'll fix this, Professor." I sat forward, ready to look into the pensive, now. "I don't know how changing one man's allegiances will help, but I'll do what I can."

"Perhaps once you have looked, you will understand." Dumbledore pushed the pensive toward me, all I could do was nod, before I took a deep breath and looked deep into the silvery liquid.

It felt like falling, though there was no sensation of up or down. I hit the velvety seat of one of the Hogwarts Express compartments, with no impact. Across from me was a boy with black, lanky hair, his face buried in a book. I didn't need to see his face, however, to know it was Snape. A red haired girl, who I recognized as Lily, sat beside him, talking incessantly about her summer, and how excited she was to go to Hogwarts. Snape looked up at her and smiled faintly. "I'm glad you're coming, too." He said quietly, then went back to his book.

The scene changed, I was sitting behind a ratty couch, Snape had his knees drawn up to his chest and his hands over his head. His arms had deep, angry bruises on them. There was a man, close by, shouting belligerently at someone. The man was obviously drunk. A bottle flew though the air and smashed into the wall about Snape, raining shards of glass and liquor onto Snape's covered head. One of the shards cut deeply into his arm, blood running down onto his face. He didn't move or make a sound, but I could see the blood mingling with tears on his face.

The scene changed again, I was in a hallway at Hogwarts, an older Snape, maybe thirteen or fourteen, was walking down the hall, his nose once again in a book. Four boys about his age making fun of him, and his tattered robes, his lanky hair; they kept calling him 'Snivellus' and laughing. One of the boys was clearly James Potter, Lupin was quiet in the back of the group, not actively participating, but not stopping it either.

Snape was sitting under a tree, by himself, again with a book in his hands. The Marauders came up behind him, throwing insults like rocks. James pointed his wand at Snape, casting levicorpus at him. Snape's robes fell over his face, his book discarded on the ground.

Lily was walking away from Snape, followed by the Marauders, clearly the same memory I had seen before in Snape's mind. Snape had called her a 'Mudblood' and she rescinded her friendship. I watched as he repeatedly tried to apologize. She told him to go back to his Death Eater friends, and leave her alone.

Snape stood alone in the rain, two fresh graves in front of him. Rain plastered his long hair to his face, tears clearly evident in his bloodshot eyes. A tall, handsome man with dark hair came up to Snape and put his arm around him. "You still have us, Severus." The man said. "We Slytherins stick together. We'll take care of you now." Snape just nodded. The man had to be Tom Riddle.

Seventh year Snape ensconced himself in one of the potions labs, he cast numerous wards and spells on the door, ensuring that he wasn't interrupted. He pulled out all kinds of notes and Arithmancy equations. He lit the flame under a cauldron and started to brew. Once the potion was complete it was a sickly green. He bottled it, vanished the rest and ran out of the room, unwarding as he went. Snape ran across the school grounds, the vial of potion tucked in his pocket. As soon as he left the grounds, he veered off the path, donned his Death Eater's silver mask and apperated away.

Snape presented the potion to Tom, who drank it down without hesitation. The man, who with that potion became the Dark Lord, smiled down at Snape, took his arm and burned the Dark Mark into Snape's pale skin.

I watched as Snape over heard Trelawney's prophecy, and reported it to Voldemort. I witnessed him at the Death Eater meeting when Voldemort revealed his plans to eradicate the Potter's, and I watched Snape plead with Dumbledore to hide the Potters. I saw years of memories, Snape enduring unknown amounts of torture as he followed both Dumbledore's orders and his struggle to maintain his cover as a spy. His skin becoming sallow and his weight dropping to nearly skin and bones, his expression souring, and as I watched he became the man I had known for five years, miserable, hateful, and hopeless.

I fell out of the Pensive onto my knees, sobbing uncontrollably.

A/N: I know it's a bit of a downer chapter, but review anyway, please.


	10. Chapter 10

Harry didn't take the memories well at all, but after an evening of destroying our common room in anger, he threw himself whole heartedly into training, He also apologized for his temper tantrum and promised that even when we fought, because we did, I was still his best friend and that couldn't change.

"Hermione, you know your family, right?" His eyes full of hope and affection.

"Yeah, Harry," I said. "You're my family, too." The reality of that statement hit both of us. We really were the only family that either of us had, and once we went back to nineteen seventy five, we would be the only people in the world who would understand what the other was going though.

At the end of the fourth week I achieved my animagus form, which was helped precipitously by the fact that I had been researching animagus with Harry and Ron since we had met Sirius. I was a small black and tan tabby with florescent green eyes and a slightly bushy tail. I was quite thrilled with my animal, which would very easily blend in, I had been a little worried that I would end up an otter, like my patronus, since it would be harder to explain what one was doing inside the castle.

Harry's animagus followed a week later, a handsome black dog, much like Sirius, but with a white lightning bolt shaped patch on his face, just above his right eye.

We stood in Dumbledore's office on the fifteenth of August. We were accompanied by both Snape and McGonagall, who were arguing furiously with the headmaster about his decision to send us back before September first.

"I understand your hesitation," Dumbledore was saying. The man was completely calm and collected, sitting back in his desk chair, his riotous purple robes contrasting severely with the general mood of the room. "Two more weeks of training and preparation would be advantageous, so would another year, or two." He looked at McGonagall over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "In the end, it will be better for them to have some time to settle in, to get the Albus Dumbledore of nineteen seventy five up to speed with what they are doing there."

"How is he going to believe us?" Harry asked looking worried. It was actually an excellent question, which I hadn't even thought to ask. "I mean, we're just kids."

"I will be sending you back to this office, twenty years ago, I will also give you a memory for you to show him." Dumbledore pulled out a vial containing a silver liquid. "He will have no doubt after that. You must let him see it, but you are not, under any circumstance to tell him your real names. As far as anyone in nineteen seventy five is to know, your names are Harry and Hermione Elderwood, you are transfers from Drumstrang, and you are to be sorted into slytherin. Dumbledore will arrange this all for you before school starts. On September first, you will board the Hogwarts Express with all the other students and make contact with Severus. After that, the steps you take to stear our dear Potions Master away from the dark and Voldemort, are your own."

"We're ready, Headmaster." I said quietly, standing directly in front of his desk.

"Albus, I would like to speak to them in privet before you send them back," Snape sounded almost sad, though with everything that he'd had to endure in his life, I didn't really know why he would be sad that we were about to change it.

"Of course, Severus," Dumbledore stood and escorted McGonagall to the door. "We'll be just outside."

Snape turned to us as soon as the door had completely shut, piercing us with his gaze. "You must both understand that while I was a quiet and reserved boy at fifteen, I was also angry and mistrustful."

"I can't imagine," Harry whispered to me under his breath, both Snape and I gave him a withering glances.

"Mr. Potter, what you are attempting to do is extremely dangerous, it has not been attempted before, and there is no guarantee that it will be successful." Snape stood right in front of Harry, using his height to his full advantage. "What I am telling you could very well save your lives, not to mention, mine."

"I apologize, Professor, please continue." Harry looked down at his shoes, appropriately cowed.

"When dealing with me, you must be completely honest at all times, at least within the boundries of your cover. I was very suspicious, and my occlumancy and legitimancy skills were well developed for a child my age." Snape took a moment and I could see him debating about something. "I am reasonably sure that Miss. Granger will be a match for me in that department, you, Mr. Potter, would do well not to let me doubt you." With that he opened the door to readmit Dumbledore and McGonagall.

"All right, as it stands, your cover is thus," Dumbledore said as he walked through the door. "You are the twin children of my tragically departed cousin and her husband Agnes and Argonaut Elderwood. When your parents died, I became your guardian, which is why, in your fifth year, you are transferring to Hogwarts. Feel free to come up with a reasonable way that your parents died, or simple refuse to talk of the matter, but make sure that Dumbledore knows." He handed me the Timeturner we would be using and Harry the pensive vial on a cord to put around his neck. "Now, we have done all the appropriate calculations, and it is imperative that nothing that could have possibly existed in nineteen seventy five go back with you, as an object cannot simultaneously exist in two places." Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a moment. "It would be like in Muggle Physics, Miss. Granger, having particles of matter and anti-matter converge."

"Which would result in an explosion, eradicating both the matter and the anti-matter," I explained to Harry, quietly.

"Yes, that is the theory, anyway," Dumbledore said. "One I would like to avoid testing. Your Timeturner, because of its properties, is exempt from this theory, though I don't know if it will survive the journey, it will not harm you."

"It would be advantageous if the both of you lived though the time travel process." Snape sneered at us, but I could tell, from the time I spent in his mind, that he cared, at least a little.

McGonagall and Snape wished us luck, in their own way, then left. Dumbledore locked the door and indicated the screen at the far corner of the room. "You both need to leave everything here, including your wands and your clothing, any jewelry that you may be wearing." I swallowed hard and went behind the screen with Harry. I wasn't particularly thrilled at being naked in front of my best friend, but I guess it was better then running the risk of being blown up.

We stood in the middle of Dumbledore's office, both doing our best not to look at one another and simultaneously covering as much as we could of ourselves. I draped the Timeturner around both of our necks, being careful not to touch Harry.

"You would do well to hold on to one another, I don't want you getting separated, this isn't going to be a normal trip." Harry turned to me and nodded, opening his arms for me to step inside. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and certainly not the way I imagined my first time being naked around a boy to be. Dumbledore flicked his wand at the Timeturner and our embrace went from awkward and uncomfortable, to holding on for dear life. The world spun around us, gusts of wind knocked against us so hard I thought we would be blown away. I wrapped my arms as tightly around Harry's waist as I possibly could, burying my face in his shoulder so that I couldn't see the world spinning around us at a sickening speed. Harry held me so tightly I could scarcely breath, his head pulled down tight to my shoulder. Then there was a sickening crack and a burst of light, then nothing.


	11. Chapter 11

I expected to wake up in Dumbledore's office, but instead found myself in the infirmary. It was late at night, the torches were very dim, and there was only darkness out the windows. I was dressed in hospital robes, which made sense to me, since they certainly wouldn't have put me back in my discarded clothing. It hadn't worked. That was completely clear to me. Whatever had happened in that time vortex hadn't gotten us back to nineteen seventy five, we probably had just been spit back out in the ninety's, and the failure to achieve our goal was the reason that we had been knocked unconscious.

I looked around the room, it was exactly the way I remembered it, long rows of tiny hospital beds that were fitted with plain white sheets, little tables for medication and well wisher's cards, and simple straight back chairs for anyone who visited. It was completely sterile, and the only thing that kept it from being any other hospital on the planet, was the fact that it was in a huge stone castle in Scotland, and had stone walls and gothic windows.

Harry was fast asleep in the bed next to mine, but there was no one else to see. I guessed that they had simply gotten tired of waiting for us to wake, and had gone to bed themselves. Dumbledore would show up in the morning, explain what had gone wrong, and what we would do next.

I lay back down on my bed and tried to slow down my racing mind. How had it gone wrong, Dumbledore and the other professors had gone through the calculations meticulously, doing and re-doing each step. There was nothing that I could think of that they hadn't already taken into consideration. But then, how had it not worked, was it simply not possible? Granted, it was only a theory, and not everything that worked in theory, that added up in calculations, worked in reality. The fact that theory was greatly helped by magic didn't mean that it was an absolute. With that comforting thought, I closed my eyes, and willed myself to sleep.

I could hear the door to the infirmary creak open, and soft voices come through the door. Dumbledore was talking quietly to Madam Pomfrey, but they were too far away from my bed for me to hear them properly. They seemed to be having an argument about something.

"We can't just keep them here at the school," Dumbledore was saying.

"Well, they aren't in a position to go anywhere at the moment, Headmaster." Pomfrey huffed at Dumbledore and went over to Harry to check him over.

"They showed up out of nowhere, there is too much risk to just let them stay here." Dumbledore sat heavily on one of the little chairs. As he got closer, I could see that his beard was slightly less gray, with dark streaks running through it. We had gotten to the past, after all, and now Dumbledore wanted to send us away. I had to do something about it; we couldn't get thrown out of Hogwarts before we could even start our mission.

I opened my eyes all the way, and sat up in bed, Pomfrey looked surprised, but Dumbledore just looked at me. It wasn't a hard look, but it wasn't the openly friendly twinkle that I was used to. He was assessing me, determining if I was in someway hostile. I wasn't sure how to respond, so I looked down at my hands. "Please, Professor," I said. "Did you happen to find a vial around my friend's neck when we arrived?"

"Yes, child, though I am not in the habit of touching things that I am not sure of." Dumbledore looked sad, but determined. "It is, after all, a dangerous time."

"I know this, sir. That's why we're here." I looked up at him and tried to put a small smile on my face, but I just couldn't muster anything that looked particularly reassuring. "It's a pensive; it'll let you know exactly why we're here and how we got here."

"Is there a reason that you can't tell me yourself?" Dumbledore leaned his forearms on his knees, looking at me directly in the eye. I could feel the weight of his mind pressing into mine, and I didn't know what to do. I knew that there were memories in my head that he shouldn't see, but I didn't want to appear distrustful and force him out. I brought to the surface the memories of Dumbledore, my Dumbledore, in his office, with Fawkes and in the Great Hall at the opening speech. I knew he looked older in the memories, but I hoped that it would reassure him about our presence.

He didn't look surprised, which was pretty typical, since it took something incredible to surprise Dumbledore, and I doubted that time travel was too incredible for him. He nodded at me, and made his way over to Harry, pulling the vial from around his neck, and then left the room.

I was starting to get worried about Harry, who was still unconscious. It had been nearly an hour that I had been awake, and yet he hadn't even stirred.

"Madame Pomfrey?" I asked tentitivly.

"Yes, dear?" She wasn't nearly as old as I remembered her, her hair was in a thick braid down her back, dark brown, with only a few strands of gray showing. "Is there anything I can get you?"

"I'm just worried about Harry." She nodded and sat down in the seat that Dumbledore had abandoned.

"He had a pretty bad conk on the head when the two of you landed in the headmaster's office." She smiled a little, and I could see a bit of a blush on her cheeks. "Apparently you made quite the impression when you landed."

I could feel my face heat up, I was pretty sure that it was quite a show, two naked teens showing up in a flash of light, then collapsing on the floor. I was more than a little happy that I hadn't been conscious for that, though I was a little sad that I had missed the look on Dumbledore's face when we showed up. "I'm sure we did."

"You had a bit of a softer landing then your friend did. He should be fine in a few hours, I gave him something for his head, and now he just needs some sleep." She stood up and took a potion out of her pocket. "As do you, dear."

I took the stopper out of the potion bottle, and upended the contents into my mouth. Before I knew it, my eye lids were working their way closed, and I was being tucked into bed.

A/N: Okay, everyone... we're back in the past, its a bit of a mild chapter, but I plan on putting one more chapter up today, hopefully those plans pan out. In the mean time, please review!


	12. Chapter 12

Harry was sitting up eating breakfast in bed when I woke the next morning. We were alone in the Hospital Ward, but I knew that we wouldn't be for long.

"Morning, 'Mione." Harry smiled around a mouth full of toast. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." I looked around, the sunlight was streaming in through the windows, and I could hear the birds outside. "Do you know what time it is?" There were no clocks in the Hospital Ward in this time either.

"Not a clue, I'm a bit jetlagged, coming twenty year seems to have thrown off my internal clock, and my watch is back in Dumbledore's office, about twenty years from now." He grinned at me, clearly trying to get me in a good mood,

I laughed, throwing my head back on my pillow. "Yeah, it's not like we can just send home for it, can we?" I thought about everything that we were going to need, wishing immediately for a parchment and quill, there were so many things we needed to get done before September first, and we had already wasted a day sleeping. Okay, unconscious, but the day was wasted none the less.

"You have thoughtful face, that's never good." Harry put his toast back on the plate, and turned to fully look at me. "You're making lists again aren't you?"

"See, this is why Dumbledore sent you with me, and not Ron."

"What, because I actually notice that your thinking about something, and don't just stuff my face and babble on about nothing?" He turned back to his breakfast, "I can stuff my face and be completely oblivious too." He shoved his entire piece of toast in his mouth to emphasize the point.

"Yes, but you have an emotional range larger then a pea, which is going to be useful." I thought about not only everything we were going to need, of which I had put watch and clothes at the top of, but also what exactly we were going to need to do. "You know we're going to have to get that surly bastard to become friends with us, right?"

"That's easier said than done, you know what he's like in our time."

"Yeah, but hopefully he'll be a little less hostile since he hasn't had two decades of torture at the hands of a Dark Lord."

"He isn't the most open and friendly child," Dumbledore said, standing in the doorway. "Don't worry; I've only been here a few minutes. I just caught the tail end of your conversation, but I know your mission, and I can't say that you are in for a particularly easy time. Severus is very closed off. He has one person he really confides in, and that relationship has become strained in the past few years." Dumbledore looked very sad. "I fear he is going to be very hard to persuade from the dark."

"If this was easy, you wouldn't have sent us back here." I said matter-of-factly. "I'd like to think that if it was an easy process then you would have found a way to do it, without us."

"You have a lot of faith in me." Dumbledore sat back in his abandoned seat from the night before.

"We've had to, sir." Harry said from his bed, finally finished with his breakfast. "Times aren't any better were we're from, if anything, it's gotten worse."

"I surmised as much, I would never have sent children to do something quite this dangerous if things weren't dire." Dumbledore looked troubled, but kept talking. "I'd like to think that I would never send children into such a volatile situation, and yet here you are. I fear greatly for the future."

"We're here to make sure that that future isn't going to come to pass, sir." I felt so melodramatic saying it, but it needed to be said.

"In that case, we are going to need to get you two some clothing." Dumbledore hit his hands on his knees and stood. "And possibly some school books." He winked at me, and I wondered what Dumbledore had put in that pensive.

"That would be a good start." I looked over at Harry's empty breakfast dishes. "Possibly some tea and toast first?"

"Yes, of course, I'll send a tray up." The Headmaster left the room chuckling slightly; the sound alone reassured me as nothing else could at that moment. Dumbledore trusted us, and that was the first step to making this mission a success. Plus, I was getting breakfast, and my tummy was more than a little happy about that fact.

Before I knew it I was dressed and fed. Dumbledore sent the two of us off to Hogsmeade to get some of our essentials. He sent us with McGonagall, who looked at us with more than a little suspicion, but when Dumbledore explained that we were his niece and nephew, she seemed a little appeased. She was wary of the reason that we didn't have anything, including wands, because any good witch or wizard wouldn't dare travel anywhere without one, but Dumbledore just waved it off, and said he would take us to Diagon Ally the following day, and not to worry.

McGonagall followed us around the small village, determined for us to get clothing before she would even think about letting us get any books, much to my chagrin, and pushed us into Gladrags, and left us to get our measurements taken. It had been years since I had been subjected to the tortures of having a sentient measuring tape fly around me, taking measurements of everything, including several things I couldn't imagine the need for, including the space between my nostrils, and the length of my hair. I stood stock still, while the crazy piece of equipment took measurements and recorded them. I could hear Harry laughing in the next room, and could only conclude that he was being subjected to the same tortures. After an hour of picking out fabrics, and ordering school robes, and also getting simple things like jeans and a few shirts, we joined McGonagall at the Three Broomsticks, and waited while she finished her Butterbeer and talked to Rosmerta about nothing in particular.

A/N: So, I'm going to post this, before my computer runs out of batteries with the promise that I'm not done for the day, since this is a bit of a wimpy chapter… review anyway, please?


	13. Chapter 13

Two weeks wasn't a particularly long time to get settled into a new time. Granted, I was pretty sure that there would be no settling, at least not for a while. I had horrible bouts of anxiety for the first week, and was subjected to a kind of homesickness that I had never imagined before. Through it all, Harry held my hand, told me it was alright, and didn't once act like a fifteen year old prat, which surprised me, but was also more than a little welcome.

Before we knew it, it was August thirty first, and we were sent to Diagon Ally, and the Leaky Cauldron, were we would be spending the night before going on the Hogwarts Express the following day.

Harry threw his school bag down on one of the beds in our small room. "I'm not sure I'm ready to go to school tomorrow." He flopped down on the bed after his bag and stared up at the ceiling.

"That's understandable," I sat carefully on the other bed, dropping my over loaded school bag on the floor. Even with the shrinking charm that I had placed on all my things, the bag was still too heavy. "It's like starting a whole new school."

"Yeah, except we know where everything is, and we're going to have to pretend we don't." Harry sighed, "I'm already planning on getting very lost on the way to History of Magic."

I laughed, I may love history, but Professor Binns was about as entertaining as watching paint dry, and Dumbledore informed us that he had arranged for us to take all of our classes with Severus, which unfortunately included History of Magic. I thought that Harry was going to cry when he was told that. Fortunately for me, there would be no Divination. "I may have to get lost with you." I could feel Harry give me an incredulous look, yes, I was thinking about skipping a class, while I had never done it before, I knew that our current mission was going to require me to do some things that were very much out of character for me, and I was willing to start that pattern with skipping the world's most boring class.

I pulled out my new wand, I hadn't quite gotten used to the new wand that Ollivander had sold me, but I was trying. The longer length was giving me more trouble than the wand itself, granted it was less than half an inch longer then my old wand, but I had nearly lost it several times while pulling it out of the wand sheath that I had strapped to my left forearm, that quarter of an inch seemed like a mile when drawing the thing. It was a bit more malleable then my previous wand, but I could live with that. I inquired about having the wand that I had before remade, or made for the first time, but Ollivander was very specific about the fact that it wasn't simply the materials that the wand was made out of, but the intent that went into the construction, the way the wand was shaped, and a myriad of other things, simply remaking my wand wouldn't work. I was resigned to learning how to handle an unfamiliar piece of wood.

I drew my wand carefully, not dropping it, and pointing it at a book that I had shrunk, Dumbledore gave us permission to use mild magic's, since we had no one over the age of majority to do it for us, but we were limited, I kept it to shrinking and enlarging charms, since they were particularly innocuous, and a simple charm for my hair, since it was so long, and I hadn't quite got the hang of putting it up, now that it was so straight and thick.

"If you're reading Hogwarts: A History again, I'm going to burn the book." Harry didn't even look over at me to see whether or not I was reading the offensive book, which I wasn't; he just pointed his wand in my direction, waving it feebly without any intent.

"Harry, don't you wave your wand at me, you don't know when it'll go off." I lazily flipped through my potions text.

"That was just dirty, 'Mione." Harry chuckled and set to getting himself situated and pulling out the information that Dumbledore had given us, regarding our fabricated history, I had already memorized mine, but in typical Harry fashion, he had waited until the last minute to even look at it, which drove me crazy.

"You know, you have to be able to spout any of that off like it's your real life history at a moment's notice," I closed the book, since I had already read the first semesters reading several times.

"I was just going to let you talk, and nod along." Harry smiled at me, cheeky brat. "I figured it was the easiest way to get through all this lying stuff, since we both know I'm absolute rubbish at lying."

"Yeah, because I'm so good at it," truth be told, I had gotten better, since it was just like memorizing facts in a book, these were simply new facts that I had to be able to tell anyone at any moment. "It's a good thing no one here knows us too well."

"You're doing great; I just can't say this new name without grinning like an idiot." Harry put the parchment down on the bed. "Elderwood just sounds so silly."

"Well, you better get used to it, I mean, Potter wasn't much better, plus it was so easy to make fun of it." Though I had made a happy little list of different ways that Elderwood could be made fun of, I cheerfully didn't tell Harry this fact.

"I'll get used to it, it's just going to take a while." Harry picked the parchment back up and started reading again.

It was unexpectedly peaceful to spend time with just Harry. When the two boys were together it was all Wizard's Chess, which I could never look at the same way again after our experience first year, and Quidditch, which I simply didn't get. When it was just the two of us we talked about things beyond the Quidditch Pitch, and Harry actually studied, with much less prodding then usual. Just thinking about Ron gave me a pang of homesickness. Even if everything went the way it was supposed to, if we changed the future and made it home, it wouldn't be the home that we had left, there was no telling if we would even be friends with Ron, if he would be the same person that we had left, everything would be different, and I missed him more than I ever thought was possible.

Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes, and I lifted my potions book closer to my face so that Harry would see them. He had been so supportive over the past few weeks, not simply since we had traveled back in time, but since we had started this entire journey that I was starting to feel like I was taking advantage of him. I had leaned on him so much, that I wasn't paying any attention to how difficult this had to be for him. He was essentially saving a man who hated him from his own mother, and he couldn't even take the time to get to know the people that were going to be his parents, people he had never had the chance to get to know. I just wished he would lean on me a bit.

I shrunk my book and placed it back into my bag. I wasn't in the least bit ready for the next day, but I knew that I needed to get some sleep, or I would be a bitchy wreck on the train, and that wasn't going to serve us particularly well at all. I said a quiet goodnight to Harry, and turned over and tried to sleep.

A/N: So three in one day? Pretty good… I promise that the next chapter will introduce young Snape, and we'll be on our way to Hogwarts. Please let me know what you think so far, reviews make me write more quickly!


	14. Chapter 14

Over the past two weeks I had come to one simple conclusion, I'd also come to several complicated ones, but that's another story. My simple conclusion was this; the wizarding world wasn't big on innovations. This thought had come about while contemplating the ceiling of the Leaky Cauldron while Harry got reacquainted with Quidditch, and talking brooms with some patrons, while I sat there completely bored. On the one hand, this was very handy for those of us who had traveled in time, since everything was exactly where I remembered it, on the other hand, everything looked like a cross between the Dark Ages and the turn of the century.

The Hogwarts Express looked exactly like it had the first time I boarded it, back in my first year, and I tried to articulate my fascination to Harry, but we both gave up, quickly concluding that there wasn't proper language to accommodate time travel, despite the Muggle and Wizarding fascination with the subject.

"I suppose we could say that it looks exactly the same as it will when we first saw it, in fifteen years, but that seems a bit complicated and wordy." I said climbing aboard.

"Plus, it makes my head hurt to think about," Harry agreed. "How are we supposed to find Snape in this mess of students?"

"He'll probably be the boy sitting alone in a compartment," I pushed my braid back over my shoulder, the stupid thing was determined to vex me, but it was much easier to deal with then when I left it loose. "I figured we'd just walk down the train until we found him."

"Then what? We just barge in and start making nice?" Harry lifted his eyebrow skeptically, and frowned, apparently he'd been working on his Slytherin.

"Or we could ask politely if we could sit and start talking to each other and let him join in as he sees fit." Yes, Harry, let's bully the shy, antisocial boy into talking with us, that should go over well, a bit like a lead balloon, I imagine.

"About what?" Harry was looking through the windows of the compartments on the right, while I looked on the left.

"Like this," I walked through the door of the compartment where young Severus Snape was sitting by the window looking sullen, with the fifth year potion book in his lap. "Hi, I'm Hermione and this is my brother Harry, do you mind if we join you?"

"Do I really have a choice" Snape didn't look up from his book, but scowled at it. If looks could kill, I'd seen better, mostly in Potions.

"Thanks," I plopped down on the bench across from him and Harry sat next to me , looking nervous and stiff. I pulled out my copy of Moste Potente Potions, which Dumbledore had gifted me with when he learned the extent of our mission. What I hadn't told him was that I had stolen the copy from the Hogwarts Library in my second year, and felt a bit naked without it, and my requisite copy of Hogwarts: A History. My new copy of the potions text was devoid of all of the annotations that I had made over the years and I had set to work correcting that error. On the other hand, it also wasn't missing any pages.

"Jeez, you have been living with that book in your hands for the past week, you already memorized the last copy, leave the poor thing in peace." Harry was wonderfully predictable.

"I have to put back all of the annotations I lost now that I don't have my old one," I smiled. Snape looked up to see what book we were talking about. He looked intrigued, but stayed quiet. I kept putting little notes in the margins of the book, since it was a brand new copy, the pages were clean and it was easy to write in pencil, instead of a quill, which I'd had to use on the old copy.

"What happened to your last copy?" Snape apparently had come to the end of whatever he had been reading in his book, placed a marker between the pages and placed it in his bag. His charcoal black eyes looked right into mine and I could feel the weight of them on me. He wasn't using legitimancy on me, but evaluating what he saw.

I had started to change my own perception of myself; no longer did I see a bushy haired, buck toothed, disaster of a girl, but a pretty girl with thick black hair, who had finally started to grow into her height and body, though it took me a few more years then some of the other girls. The use of the timeturner in third year had left me nine months older then my birthday would indicate, but I still looked like I was yet to turn fifteen, instead of on the verge of turning sixteen. "It was lost in the fire, alone with everything else." I thought about everything else that was 'lost in the fire' and teared up a bit, needing to tilt my head up and blink rapidly to keep them from falling.

"Indeed," he nodded his head slightly, as if to acknowledge what hadn't been said. "That book is in the restricted section at Hogwarts."

"Oh, it was at our old school, too." I debated on telling him my old copy was stolen, but figured it was too soon to divulge secrets, information was power in Slytherin, and I held Gringott's vault full. "This one was a present from our uncle, he knew how attached I was to my old one." It was nearly the truth, too.

"Have you brewed many of the potions?" Now, he looked intrigued. "I mean you seem to be making pretty thorough notes."

"A few, some of my notes are from brewing, but most are things I picked up from my old Potions Master." Apparently he hadn't been as absorbed in his book as he had looked, I filed that information away for later. If I was to be a Slytherin, I might as well start acting like one.

"Where did you say you went to school?" Snape didn't take his eyes off of me, manipulating the conversation to suit his goals, but I could play that way, too.

"I never did."

"Touché," he said, the corner of his mouth going up nearly imperceptibly. "Then, I shall inquire as to what school you and your very quiet brother attended." Harry's ears turned pink, but he stayed quiet.

I nodded my head to Snape, "Then you would have us at a disadvantage, knowing both our names and where we came from, were we have yet to learn yours."

"I am Severus Snape." He looked smug at his blatant volunteering of information. "And I ask again, where is it you went to school last year?" His eyes didn't leave mine, challenging me to lie.

"Durmstrang."

A/N: Sorry this took so long, I had it written last Saturday, but I haven't had any time to put it up. Anyway, I'll try to get at least another chapter up sometime today, but it is St. Patty's day. Review, it'll encourage me to write more!

A/N2: A special thanks to my unoffical beta Heartmom88, who was lovely enough to write me a quick email and tell me all of the silly little mistakes I made. Lots of Love!


	15. Chapter 15

We spent the rest of the train ride talking lightly about potions and our interest in books. He was interested in my acquisition of a Hogwarts: A History, and a bit confused by the fact that I didn't have a copy of the Durmstrag equivalent, but I deflected with the excuse that I hadn't gotten a new copy. I made a note to talk to Dumbledore about acquiring one; I didn't want to be caught unawares if I was asked a question about the school that I couldn't answer, simple because I hadn't done the proper research.

When we reached Hogwarts station we boarded one of the carriages, no longer pulled by nothing, and I regretted being able to see the thestrals, the eerie looking creatures pawed and snorted, waiting to get moving. I gave Snape a glance under my lashes to see if he reacted to them, but either he had seen them before and was schooling his expression or he couldn't see them.

"Those things creep me out every time I see them," Harry told me under his breath as we road to the school. "I mean, I know that they won't hurt us, but they look so disturbing."

"They can't help how they look, Harry." I said, burying my nose back into my fifth year potions book. Snape had pointed out some potions that I should make some minor changes on, he said they would brew better, and who was I to argue with one of the best potions masters of the century; granted he wouldn't gain that title for another fifteen year, but I was willing to believe whatever he said about improving potions. Snape wouldn't give you tips without being completely sure.

"I'd ask how you can see them, but since I have no intention of telling you my story, I'll refrain." Snape was reading ahead in his potions book, carefully running his long fingers down the page, a scrap piece of parchment on the opposite page for arithmancy calculations. I couldn't see what he was writing, but if his handwriting from school was any indication, even if I had a clear view of the calculations, I wouldn't be able to read them anyway. "You might want to change the number of adder scales from five to seven and stir clockwise twice, not three times, on the hair grow potion, that is if you don't want hair growing out of your ears."

"I'll make that note." I flipped through the pages, and jotted down what he had told me.

"How do you know so much about potions?" Harry asked before I could tell him to shut up.

"Well, Harry, like your dear sister, I actually spend time with my studies." Snape sniffed disdainfully, "I take it that you aren't the brains of your family."

"I just have other interests." Poor Harry had finally found himself in the company of academics; at least he now knew what I had been dealing with for the past five years.

"Unless you plan on making it as a professional Quidditch player, you're going to need more than a rudimentary understanding of the core classes that are offered at Hogwarts. Maybe they didn't reinforce that idea at your old school, though I had previously more faith in Durmstrag then that." Snape closed his book, carefully marking his place. "At least your sister has some intelligence. I imagion that she will either make a fine addition to Ravenclaw or Slytherin, you on the other hand, I fear, may be destined for Gryffindor or Hufflepuff."

Snape didn't know how close to the truth he actually was, I had very nearly been a Ravenclaw, and I can't say that I wasn't going to miss the loss of the familiar red and gold common room. "Harry might be quiet, but he's smarter then he sounds, most of the time."

"Hermione, I understand that you must say that because he's your brother," Snape gave me a mock sympathetic look.

"So, tell me about these houses that you have. I've heard a little about Gryffindor and Slytherin, but what about the other two?" Best to get a Slytherin take on the house structure early on, wouldn't want to say something that might get me in trouble.

"Gryffindor is where they put the students who have the uncanny problem of acting first and thinking later, they are said to be brave, but they are stupidly so, not looking out for their own person enough. Hufflepuff is known for their loyalty, in the same way a golden retriever is known for its loyalty. Ravenclaw, in my opinion is the only other acceptable house, other than Slytherin, they are very smart, book smart, but still a commendable trait. They are more concerned with book learning than anything else. Then there is Slytherin, which is clearly the best house. We are fierce and intelligent, we know how to look out for ourselves, but that isn't to say that we don't look out for our own."

"So, you're a Slytherin then?" Harry raised his eyebrows at Snape, but I was pretty sure he didn't notice, since he had his eyes peering ceaselessly into mine.

"I am a Slytherin, and proud of it."

"I thought pride was a Gryffindor trait." I smirked at Snape when he let out a bark of laughter. "So, Slytherin's have pride, too?"

"All the houses have pride of their own," Snape said, clearly no longer interested in the conversation. "We'll see whose pride you will have in a matter of minutes. We're here." He got out of the carriage and stalked toward the castle doors. It wasn't up to the dramatics that he was able to create as a teacher, but it wasn't bad, his school robes didn't quite flap like his teaching robes would one day.

"Well, Harry," I gathered up my things and stuffed them back into my bag. "It's the moment of truth. You ready?"

"Nope."

A/N: Okay, thats probably going to be all for today. I'll try to get another one or two up tomorrow, we'll see how well cleaning the house goes... I'd rather be writing. Don't forget to review!


	16. Chapter 16

Harry and I stood in the ante room off of the Great Hall, a room that I hadn't been in since first year, and those first year jitters came back to me full force. My brain started running full throttle, going in a million directions at once, what would happen if this didn't go the way our Dumbledore wanted, how were we going to pull this off? It was easy enough talking to Snape on the train, all I had to do was talk about academics, something that I was good at, but what happened when it came time to dealing with Lily and the Marauders? How were the two of us going to be able to keep Snape from going to Voldemort? What on earth had we been thinking, and now we were stuck in the past with a mission that would hold the key to a war that wouldn't happen for twenty years. I was only fifteen years old for Merlin's sake!

McGonagall walked into the room, clapping her hands and calling for our attention. Besides Harry and myself, there were at least forty first year students, which was about average as far as I could tell, and how McGonagall ever managed to get them all quiet was beyond me, but it was impressive to watch anyway. The first years all looked so lost and scared, and I marveled at the fact that not too long ago I had been one of those kids. They looked so young, but in truth, they were all several years older then I myself was. I really had to stop thinking about the time travel issue, because it simply made my head hurt. For all intense and purposes, I was fifteen, no matter if I was born in nineteen eighty, which wasn't for another five years, or nineteen sixty.

"You will soon be sorted into your houses. All Hogwarts students live in one of four residences: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin. Each house has its own team for Quidditch. The houses are in a yearlong competition with one another to acquire the most points, which are earned by success in Quidditch games and given by teachers for academic achievement, and lost for student infractions, in order to win the House Cup awarded at the end of the year." McGonagall's speech apparently never changed. "You will live as a House, eat as a House, and succeed or fail as a House."

With that she turned and led the students through the door into the Great Hall. She pulled out a long parchment, each of their names written in alphabetical order. "Abbot, Jackson." McGonagall called out, her voice carrying over all the other in the Hall. The Sorting Hat was placed on the unsuspecting boy's head, and shouted "Hufflepuff," without a moment's hesitation. I tuned out after that, waiting for the 'E's' to arrive, but when they did, we were left out. I looked over at Harry, but he just shrugged. When McGonagall got to the end of the list, finishing with 'Zabini, Desmond,' she looked up at Dumbledore, who nodded.

"We have two new students this year," Dumbledore began. "They have come to us from our friends in the north, Durmstrag, and will be joining the fifth year class." He nodded to Harry and me, "I would like to present to you, Harry and Hermione Elderwood. I expect each and every one of you to welcome them with open arms. I am sure you all know how difficult it is to be the new student at a boarding school far from home, and I expect you all to treat them as you, yourselves wish to be treated." Dumbledore took a moment and paused, considering. "Please make sure that they feel at home, and help them out in any way you can, remember how difficult it was to navigate this castle when you first arrived." He nodded to McGonagall again, who stood.

"Elderwood, Harry" she placed the hat on Harry's head, and it seemed to take a long time to deliberate, which made me start to twitch. "Slytherin!" The hat shouted. The Slytherin house clapped politely, obviously not thrilled with the idea of having a new member in their fifth year class, not that they had shown over exuberance to the incoming first years either. Harry got down off the Sorting Hat stool, which I noticed was much easier for him now then it had been in his first year, Harry had gotten much taller then I realized. I watched Harry walk slowly over to the Slytherin table, almost like it was painful for him, which I guessed it might be, after so many years as a loyal Gryffindor.

"Elderwood, Hermione" McGonagall called, startling me out of my thoughts. I walked over to the Sorting Hat's stool and sat down, feeling its weight press down on my head. "Ahh," the hat said in my ear, "you are an interesting case." I could feel it rummaging around in my brain, looking at everything that made me what I am. "I could make a case for putting you in nearly any house, and you would be a boon to each one, but it seems that Dumbledore has other ideas for you, and I must agree, this mission that you have found yourself on will take every bit of cunning that you have, and you run with an abundance of it, Severus Snape isn't going to know what hit him." The Hat murmured in my ear, slowly pulling away from my mind. "The best place for you, despite your Muggle-Born status, is clearly," The Hat paused, then over the entire hall, called "Slytherin!"

A/N: Well, its a bit of a short chapter, but I simple wasn't ready to go any further then the Sorting Hat. I promise to get the next chapter up tomorrow. Please review, it makes writing the next chapter all that much more enjoyable!


	17. Chapter 17

I slid off the Sorting Hat stool, but made no move towards the Slytherin table. I looked over at my new housemates, a few of the students were clapping politely, Harry looked a little white and Snape was just smirking, like he had know it would turn out like this. Granted, I actually did know it would turn out this way, and I was still a little shell shocked. Five years before, to me anyway, the Sorting Hat told me that while I would feel comfortable with my intellectual peers in Ravenclaw, my bravery would make me a prize among the Lions, apparently that bravery ran for its like when faced with a den of snakes, because I wasn't doing everything I could not to tremble. I was book smart, I could recite, word for word, anything from any book I had ever read, but I was now faced with a problem that no amount of reading would solve. How do you convince a boy, who is suspicious by nature, to become your friend and trust you, when most of what you tell him is lies. My best bet was to be as forth coming and honest in everything that I could be, and hope he wasn't a better Legilimens then I was an Occlumens. So I wasn't from Durmstrag, I wasn't going to be born for another five years, and Harry wasn't my brother, not really; absolutely everything else out of my mouth would be the truth.

I nodded to myself, next part of my plan figured out, and I strode confidently over to the Slytherin table. I plopped myself down between Harry and Snape, and pulled back out my potions text, while Dumbledore got up to speak.

"I wish only to say a few words of welcome to all of our students, both new and returning." Dumbledore's voice rumbled around the room like distant thunder, every student stopped talking and took heed. "With that being said, I also which to remind you that the Forbidden Forest is, as always, forbidden and out of bounds, please remember that the use of any of Zonko's products in the hallway is frowned upon, and curfew is set at nine for forth year and under, and at ten for our older students, it is unwise to be found out of your dorm after that time." I almost waited for Ron to make some kind of snarky comment at this, my heart contracted sharply when I remembered he would never make a comment like that to me again. "Now, let's eat!"

Food appeared on the tables, and even though I hadn't eaten on the train, I simply wasn't hungry. There were several students that I vaguely recognized, due to old wizarding photos and having me them at one point or another in the future. None of them made me particularly thrilled. Lucius Malfoy was easy to spot, he had to be in his seventh year, as he was older then Harry's parents, and was Death Eater in seventy-five, he was holding court somewhat down the table. He gave me a penetrating leer from his place, but said nothing to me, which I was grateful, the look alone was enough to turn my stomach and put me off dinner.

"Mione, you've got to eat something," Harry whispered in my ear. "We're not supposed to know where the kitchens are yet, and I don't fancy asking any of the Slytherins for a favor, at least not yet."

"Do you know who we are sitting with, Harry?" I whispered back.

"You know," Snape interrupted our conversation. "It's rude to whisper secrets when others, who are not privy are present."

"Yes, thank you, Severus." I said, looking at the pale boy. "It is also rude to interrupt a conversation that you haven't been invited into." I smiled at him and the corner of his lip turned up. "Perhaps we should all endeavor to be more polite."

"I think that I can agree to such a proposition." Snape nodded his head to me. "It is a nice change having someone who can keep up conversation with me, it would be remiss of me to anger my only source of decent conversation."

Harry sat quietly by my side, trying to sneak more and more food onto my place when he thought I wasn't looking. "Honestly, Harry, I cannot eat this much." I slid the plate over in front of him and took his nearly empty plate.

"Nervous?" Snape asked softly, so that none of our dinner companions could hear.

"Maybe a bit," I admitted. "But, more the fact that it has been a trying few months."

"Care to elaborate?" He picked up his potions text and opened to the page he had been studying.

"I think I'd rather stick to potions," I looked at the page he was on, an advanced calming draft that I had helped, and by helped I mean kept out of his way while he worked, the older Snape brew over the summer. "If you add an extra stir clockwise after you add the Adder's Tongue, it'll facilitate the addition of the Chamomile more smoothly."

"Really?" Snape did a few quick calculations on his scrap of parchment. "How did you know that?" He showed me the calculations, which balanced much better than the original ones he had done up.

"I noticed that you ask me for validation, while I have simply taken your word."

"Perhaps you are too trusting, something I could take advantage of in the future," Snape smirked at me.

"Or, I recognize a superior scholar in this particular subject, and I am bowing to your wisdom so that you will continue to give me useful tips so that I can eventually surpass your, using your own knowledge as a base."

"Very sneaky of you," Snape replied, putting the new annotation in his book. "I might as well introduce you to your new housemates." I noticed that not one of said housemates looked up or in our direction. "The blond over there is our seventh year Prefect, Lucius; next is his girlfriend Narcissa and her sister Bellatrix, I suggest keeping away from her." I couldn't have agreed more, I'd have liked to stay away from Lucius, too, but apparently he and Snape were friendly. "Across from Lucius is Rodulphus, then Mulciber and Avery, and finally Evan and Wilkes are across from us." Fantastic, it's a bloody Death Eater gathering, with Lucius Malfoy holding the reins, and it's my job to make Snape see the light, latterly, we were so screwed.

A/N: Okay, so I have another chapter written, unfortunately I have to type it up, and it being Saturday night, it may not go up tonight… but at least you can look forward to an update tomorrow. Please, review, it makes this author happy!


	18. Chapter 18

Snape went to the head of the Slytherin group, helping herd the first years, plus Harry and myself, down to the Slytherin common room. It looked like another decorated, oversized prison cell. The furniture was immaculate and of the highest quality, but it did nothing to brighten the dark room. There were few windows, set high on the walls, but these were befitting of a dungeon and would let in little or no light. The fire place was crackling with a large fire, but none of the heat penetrated into the cold, uncaring room, I made indefinite plans to spend lots of time in the library.

"Hermione, right?" Narcissa Malfoy, no Black, stood in front of me, an easy smile on her lips, which startled me. She looked so different from the dower woman I had seen with Draco shopping in Diagon Ally. She was just as thin, but her face was animated and full of light, I couldn't help but smile back. "I'll show you to our dorm. It's so nice to have another girl in fifth year, the Smith twins didn't come back this year and Constance Parkinson is about as pleasant as a pit-bull in heat."

"That sounds great," if Constance was as lovely as her niece, I could end up hexing her inside of a month. Good thing Ginny taught me her bat boggy hex. Thinking about Ginny brought tears to my eyes. Narcissa lead me into a small bedroom with three canopied beds done in dark wood and green curtains. I sat down on the bed that had my trunk at the end, and finally let myself cry.

I could feel the bed shrift next to me, but I wasn't expecting anything, I mean, these were Slytherins after all, could and heartless and out for power. "I know it's hard," Narcissa said quietly. "It's a new school, with new people and new rules, but you'll like it. This is a good house and I see you've made friends with Severus, if you can make friends with him, you can charm anyone."

"It's not just that it's new," I said, my voice broken from crying. "I miss my friends and family so much, every little thing reminds me of how far away they all are."

"Do you mind if I ask what happened?" Narcissa let me lean into her shoulder and rubbed circles into my back. "Why did you both leave Durmstrag, it's a wonderful school from what I hear."

"There," I took a deep breath. It's hard to lie when you're upset, but at least she wouldn't question anything I said. "There was a fire." Tears rolled down my cheeks, stinging my eyes and face. "Just before the summer holiday." Dumbledore had gone over our cover with us ad nausium. "Our parents had been working on the house for months, and we guess the anti-fire charms had been taken down and hadn't gone back up yet, because the house burned to the ground while they slept."

"That's terrible," Narcissa hugged me to her, and just let me cry. Guilt but into the knot in my stomach at having to lie to this girl who was being so nice to me, I made a silent vow that if I ever saw Draco Malfoy again, I would be nicer to him.

As it was barely eight o'clock, Narcissa left me to sleep, while she went back to the common room. My eyes hurt and so did my head, so instead of unpacking; I changed into some pajamas and slept as if I were dead.

The trek to breakfast the next morning was done with my eyes nearly closed. While I had slept better than I had in a month, I still had a month of sleep to catch up on, and waking up in a room with no windows to indicate the fact that morning came was seriously messing with my head.

"Good morning, Medusa." Severus greeted me, chuckling. If I had the energy, I would have flipped him off.

"Leave her alone, Sev," Narcissa plopped down next to me and threw her harm around my shoulder. "It's her first day waking up in the dungeons, takes getting used to." She started piling food on my plate like harry had the night before, looks like I had been adopted by the Slytherin Princess, it was too early in the morning to deal with that realization, and I couldn't seem to locate any coffee on the table.

"Coffee," I looked at Narcissa pleading. "Must have coffee for proper brain function."

"Only seventh years get coffee, sorry." Severus turned as an owl dropped the Daily Prophet into his oatmeal; he quickly cleaned it off and flicked it open.

"We're Slytherins, can't you find a way to get some," I was horrified at the notion of being deprived of my coffee, first time traveling back twenty years, now no coffee, I might cry again.

"In other words, you want me to steal the coffee for you." Severus raised his eyebrows at me, trying for an innocent look, it fell completely flat.

"Not steal, just borrow." I said, my eyes drifting closed again.

"How do you propose giving it back?"

"Borrow indefinitely." I wasn't getting any coffee, was I? "Just a little, only a few cups, no one will ever miss them." A cup slid under my nose, the hand attached to it belonged to none other than Lucius Malfoy. I tried to smile in thanks, but attacked the mug instead.

"Can't have our newest Slytherin die of caffeine depravation on the first day." His smile caused the coffee I had just consumed on and empty stomach to lurch in my belly.

"Thanks, Lucius." Narcissa smiled at her boyfriend. "Mione thanks you, too."

"Speaking of new Slytherins," Severus said, putting down his paper. "What has become of your silent brother?" I shrugged my shoulders, feeling a bit bad that I hadn't thought of Harry since then night before.

"You share a room with him, did you see him this morning?"

"Nope," Severus flicked his paper back up. "Perhaps he got lost."

A/N: Sorry about the long wait, something went wonky with and I couldn't post. Keep reviewing, and I'll keep writing.


	19. Chapter 19

Harry followed me like a silent shadow from the great hall all the way down to the potions lab. I could tell that he was as unnerved as I was about the Slytherin House members, almost everyone of them whose names I knew, where Death Eaters, or associated with Death Eaters, or married to Death Eaters in our time. Even looking at the first years, I knew at least one of them was dead and two others were serving life sentences in Azkaban. It wasn't just for Harry and the Order that I had to be successful, not just for Severus or for me, but those kids, who would die or rot away. It was too sad t think about the first years in that way.

The potions classroom was much as I remembered it, dark and dank and a bit musty. I was a bit worried about the lesson; I'd never had a potions class with anyone but Snape. Granted it would probably be a much less stressful year, but I still felt a small pang of regret.

"Harry, you can't sit with me," I said as harry hovered over the bench next to me.

"Um, why?" Harry continued to hover over the seat, but didn't sit down, probably afraid of what I would do to him if he did.

"Because, we aren't' here to socialize with each other," I said and pushed him back into a standing position and away from the bench I had claimed. "Plus, I think potions is one of the best places for me to get close to Severus."

"Oh, it's 'Severus' now, is it?" Harry wiggled his eyebrows at me. He seemed to be taking this very well, but we also hadn't run into Lily or the Marauders yet.

"Shut up," I pushed him further from the bench and pulled out Moste Potente Potions, my lure for our future potions master. "What do you want me to call him? Professor Snape?" Harry just sat down on the bench behind me.

"Do you ever put that book down?" A silky voice asked, his breath whispered against my cheek.

"Jealous?" I asked as he sat down, I did a little happy dance inside my head.

"Of you or the book?" He asked raising his eyes to meet mine.

I looked away quickly, trying to hide my face with my hair, but remembered too late that it wasn't the hair I was used to. "Of me," I said, turning to a page at random. "Who would be jealous of a book?"

"Any red blooded wizard, who saw how lovingly you handled and stroked the think."

"Ew, dirty." I snatched my hands from the book and had the urge to wipe them off on my robes.

"He's right, Mione, you must have missed the way Lucius was looking at you during breakfast, I was almost jealous." Narcissa said over my shoulder, from her seat next to Harry. "He even gave you his coffee." Oh, gag, I'd drunk from the same cup as Malfoy, what on earth would he say if he knew he had shared with a mudblood like me.

"Please, I'm nothing special," I said, but I could feel the blush crawling up my neck. "I'm just new, and that's all."

"Your very pretty, Mione, with that thick hair and pale skin, which is flawless and that button nose." Narcissa leaned over her and Harry's desk, sticking her head between Severus and me. "I would defiantly look your way if I was a boy."

"I think my potions book is sexier, if I get a vote," I said.

"You don't," both Narcissa and Severus said, and I suddenly felt very intrigued by the page I had turned to, which was a Draft to invoke night terror. "I think we're embarrassing our newest housemate." Narcissa said, and I would have been grateful for the save, if she hadn't been the one tormenting me in the first place. Slughorn saved me from saying anything further to my housemates, though I was silently cursing Harry for saying nothing to help me, I was also a little pleased with the attention.

I was used to my Potions Master making a grand entrance, black cloak sweeping behind him like wings, sneering and shouting out instructions the whole way. Slughorn was the antithesis of Professor Snape. He was a round, slightly squat man, who reminded me of a toad instead of a bat; he waddled slightly down the aisle, and was wreathed in smiles and terribly pleased to be there. It was such a difference from what I was used to, I wasn't sure how to react.

"Good morning, class," Slughorn beamed at us, and I made a note not to sit in the front row again, his enthusiasm was unnerving. "I see you are all nicely paired off. I hope you are happy with your partners, as these will be your partners for the remainder of the term." I could hear Narcissa ask Harry if he was any good at potions, because she wanted at least an 'E' this term. "We will start the year with a simple Calming Draught." Which I had done in my third year, thank you Professor Snape, I was getting an 'O' this term and I wouldn't even have to try.

"We are never going to get to the advanced potions if Slughorn keeps coddling us," Severus said to me under his breath, I suddenly had a bit of insight into why Snape pushed us so hard.

"Not in class, anyway," I whispered back.

"And where do you suggest we brew these illicit potions?" He handed me the mugwart to be pulverized and started dicing the vervain.

"I don't know, you know this school better than I do." It was too bad I couldn't just tell him here I would go to brew, since the third floor girls' bathroom was the best place in the entire school to get anything done that broke rules. You just had to deal with Moaning Myrtle, and that wasn't too hard.

"I bet Lucius will let us use his dorm, the Head's get their own living quarters." I shivered at Severus' suggestion.

"He'll want a portion of whatever we brew," I argued reasonably. I didn't trust Lucius farther than I could throw him, and I knew our activities would bet back to Voldemort, which I wanted to avoid. "How about an unused classroom?" I asked, adding some lavender to our already sickly green brew.

"That's most likely a better option," Severus took our glass stir rod and added two counter clockwise stirs before adding the juiced valerian root. "I have rounds tonight, meet me at the common room door just after ten, we'll explore."

A/N: Okay, last for today… I'm super excited that I can post again at will! REVIEW!


	20. Chapter 20

It was silent as a tomb in the hallway when I snuck out of the common room. Maybe I just wasn't used to living in the dungeons, maybe I never would be, but the silence was unnerving. I looked in both directions and saw no one. My watch said it was just past ten, and standing alone in the cold, stone hallway was creepy, which made me grouchy. Where was he?

Cold, long fingered hands came from behind me, one wrapping around my mouth, the other gripping my wand hand. "You should pay more attention to your surroundings down in the dungeons, Hermione," Severus whispered in my ear. "You don't know what snakes are hiding in the dark." I responded by licking his palm, and was abruptly released. "That's just unsanitary; you don't know where my hands have been."

"And I'd thank you not to tell me," far too many mental pictures at that suggestion. "But serves you right, you're lucky I didn't bite you." Severus just huffed and started walking down the corridor.

Every hallway in the dungeons looked the same. While the halls in the upper floors had windows and tapestries adorning them, the ones down near Slytherin House were bare, but for the torches that barely served to light them. I was completely out of my element, and had to trust that Severus knew where he was going.

We walked for a full ten minutes, Severus stalking down the hall in front of me, checking every door that we passed for one that was left open. I thought about suggesting casting Alohomora, but with the way he was walking down the hall, his robes billowing around him, his back stiff and straight, like his thirty five year old counterpart, I figured my comments were best left to myself.

Finally, one of the handles turned, and Severus stumbled into the unlocked room. I followed soon after; the room hadn't seen people in quite some time, by the look of it, which wasn't surprising since it was tucked so far back into the dungeons that I was positive I wouldn't be able to find my way back without a map and a little luck. The room was full of cobwebs so thick that you couldn't identify anything else.

"Well, we know why no one bothered to lock it," I said. Trying not to inhale any of the dust that permeated the air.

"It seems unlikely that anyone adventures this far." Severus nodded in agreement. "I suggest we dispose of these cobwebs, and see what we are working with."

We made our way back to Slytherin after midnight, our muscles sore from the cleansing charms we hadn't finished casting on the abandoned potions lab. It was, after much work, a potions lab, complete with a sound, if slightly elderly, work bench, and a nice sized store room, which would require its own cleaning. Vials of unidentified potions adorned the shelves, which were themselves filled with dust and cobwebs of long disuse. The cauldrons found under the workbench would require some vigorous scrubbing; they were still caked in the potions last brewed in them. The entire room smelled like a long abandoned embalming chamber even after two hours of intensive cleaning, but we had found our hiding place, somewhere to brew what proper fifth years should be brewing, and maybe some slightly more advanced potions. Though I was intent on skipping the one that invoked night terrors, unless we wanted to slip it to Lucius.

I was convinced we were lost on the way back, and said so. Severus just gave me a stunted leer and said in a low silky voice, "Would I get you lost?" I wasn't sure if he was trying to flirt with me, since I'd never had a boy flirt with me before, at least I didn't think I had been flirted with; or he was trying to be funny, and failing.

"I don't know, Sev," I said, batting my lashes at him like a cartoon dog. "Would a snake purposely get a poor, innocent girl lost in the dark, scary dungeons?"

"Not if that poor, innocent girl was a snake as well," his leer turned into a perfect Slytherin smirk. "I don't have to get you lost, I know where you live." Yep, he was flirting, and even though I knew the greasy bastard he had the potential to be, I was amicable to flirting back. I was so screwed.

It took nearly two weeks to get the room completely clean, two weeks of sneaking out of the common room and spending hours alone in a dirty, secret room far back in the dungeons. I should have been worried about someone sneaking out of the dark to murder us; instead I was wondering if our easy friendship and constant flirty banter was ever going to lead to him kissing me. I was inexcusably falling for Severus Snape, the snarky bastard of a Potions Master, who had spent four years delighting in degrading me. Now, twenty years in the past, all I could think about was the two weeks we had spent cleaning a potions lab together and sharing meals and classes, and I just wanted to know what his lips felt like on mine. Was his hair as silky as his voice, and could he ever feel for me the way I could see he felt for Lily, the way his mind remembered feeling for Lily, even nearly twenty years after she had died?

A/N: And another chapter. I would like to thank my beta, even though she told me she didn't need any recognition, you know who you are, and how much I appreciate her help. That being said, any and all mistakes are mine. Please, review, it makes me happy!


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